Lossless is available in FLAC and ALAC (For Mac). You select on the download page.
When you purchase a lossless format, we include the MP3 free of charge
Please note: On Mp3 format an unavoidable click may be heard on segue track breaks, to avoid this issue please select lossless
Buy SACD
P&P for single unit's: UK=£1.83, EU=£4.1, World=£7
Why not buy the whole Album?
Your selections total more than the whole disc price.
Notes
Thirty years after having recorded Dvorák’s complete Symphonies on Chandos, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and its laureate conductor, Neeme Järvi, tackle another romantic Czech composer, Julius Fucík, famous for his more than 400 polkas, marches, and waltzes, a mouth-watering selection of which is featured here.
Fucík studied violin in his early years, switching later to the bassoon, with a subsidiary in percussion and timpani. Playing in Austro-Hungarian regiments, he gained invaluable experience of writing for military band and became a very prolific composer of marches. The most famous of these is of course Entry of the Gladiators, completed in 1899 and soon performed throughout the world.
Full of energetic, effervescent Bohemian cross-rhythms, tuneful brass melodies (often now associated with a circus atmosphere), but also more lyrical expressions, this album is a festival in itself.
Please login to post a review
Reviews
“...tonic of a release, recorded with clarity and warmth, and played with excellence and enjoyment ... there’s no doubting Neeme Järvi’s affectionate and spry conducting is cause to uncork the champagne.” *****
Colin Anderson – ClassicalSource.com – July 2016
“... This is all delightful light music, its range as wide as that of Strauss or Sousa... The recorded sound is excellent, up to Chandos’s usual high standard...”
James H North Fanfare March/April 2016
Nominee for 2016 ICMA (International Clasical Music Awards) - Symphonic category
Performance **** Recording *****
“ Neeme Järvi and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra deliver this excellently recorded anthology with great enthusiasm, throwing themselves into these brightly coloured score without a hint of condescension or irony. David Hubbard supplies the cadenza and obbligato solo for bassoon – Fucik’s own instrument – in the comic polka The Old Grumbler with verve. All in all, this is a highly enjoyable reminder of the delights of Romanticism’s popular side”
Jan Smaczny – BBC Music magazine – December 2015
Editor’s Choice – Orchestral Section
“…The sound picture is a Chandos spectacular… All in all, this is the best Fucik disc since Václav Neumann and the Czech Philharmonic in 1976.”
Jeremy Nicholas - Gramophone magazine – Awards Issue 2015
Performance ***** Sonics (Multichannel) *****
"Neeme Järvi and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra perform each of the 14 pieces of this generously filled SACD with typical style and panache. The 5. 0 24 bit / 96kHz recording made in the Glasgow Concert Hall is as crisp and sparkling as the performances. Exceptionally informative notes on the composer’s life and music by Nigel Simeone are the icing on the cake for this hugely entertaining and exhilarating programme. In every respect a most welcome release."
Graham Williams - HRAudio.net - 28 August 2015
Media Downloads
Whenever possible we provide a high resolution CD cover image and a PDF version of the CD booklet for you to download and keep